Space Cowboys (2000)

B
SDG

At least three
times in 1998’s Armageddon
Bruce Willis and his crew of oil-drillers-cum-astronauts are
referred to as "cowboys," and once they are actually called
"space cowboys." I can’t help imagining Clint Eastwood staring
incredulously at the chaotic, dim-witted proceedings on the
screen and muttering to himself, in that famous gravelly voice:
"Cowboys? You want space cowboys? I’ll show you space
cowboys."

Age Appropriateness

MPAA Rating

Caveat Spectator

Structurally, the plot of Space Cowboys is almost
identical to that of Armageddon. (Spoiler warning.) An emergency
outer-space mission utilizing a government-misappropriated
technology requires the intimate technical expertise of the man
who designed it. The designer agrees to do the job, but only if
he can bring his own team. Since he has the government over a
barrel, they agree; and soon the nominated team members have
signed up, even one (the youngest) who harbors a grudge against
the team leader. A training sequence follows as the would-be
astronauts are brought up to speed for their mission. There’s a
love-interest subplot involving the youngest team member, and
some friction with the space program’s regular astronauts. At
last our heroes head for the stars, accompanied by a token
military character with a covert mission to protect the
government’s interests, who of course nearly ruins everything. In
the end, through wildly improbable heroics, though not without
cost and self-sacrifice, our heroes prevail.

And yet Space Cowboys is nothing like the earlier film. Overblown, overwrought, and overdone, Armageddon was a movie on overdrive, fueled by adrenaline and testosterone, lurching along in fits and starts. Eastwood’s film exudes easy charm and never takes itself too seriously; it runs on a slower-burning but higher-grade fuel: the likability and established audience goodwill of the four aging leads (Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner). Where Armageddon merely strutted, Cowboys swaggers. What’s the difference? Style.

So it’s not exactly a masterpiece. Cheerfully derivative,
unassumingly formulaic, Cowboys is content not to blaze
any trails, but follows well-worn wagon tracks to a comfortably
familiar destination. So what? If you enjoy the company, the trip
is a pleasant one. In a year of record studio underachievement
that has produced a host of big-budget, big-star disappointments
like Battlefield Earth
and Mission: Impossible
2, Space Cowboys is a minor gem.

Frank (Eastwood), Hawk (Jones), Jerry (Sutherland), and Tank
(Garner) are the aging former members of Team Daedalus, a 1950s
team of hot-dog Air Force pilots who pushed the frontiers of the
space program, dreaming of becoming the first Americans in space — until the project was unexpectedly taken away from the military
and given to NASA civilians, who proceeded to replace Eastwood’s
team with a monkey. (The prologue narrates these events in
black-and-white footage, and the characters’ lines are dubbed in
the stars’ own voices, so you know right away who’s who.)

This betrayal was facilitated by Bob Gerson (played later in
life by James Cromwell), a self-aggrandizing superior officer who
negotiated himself a fast-track career at NASA out of the deal.
Meanwhile, the Daedalus alumni have gone on to generally less
glorious futures, each in some way reflecting their first love of
speed and space: Frank became a rocket scientist, Hawk continued
flying as a charter pilot, Jerry indulged his love of G-forces by
designing roller coasters, and Tank reached for the heavens by
taking up the cloth as a Baptist minister.

Now, though, NASA bigwig Gerson has a problem, and the only
one who can help him is the one man on the planet whose help he
least wishes to ask — and is least likely to get. Frank is even
less inclined to help when he discovers the reason his help is
needed: An early propulsion system design of his has mysteriously
wound up on an ancient, enormous Russian communications
satellite, whose orbit has begun decaying at a dangerous rate. By
now Frank’s design is so archaic as to be arcane, and it’s
impenetrable to modern engineers. Political reasons are given for
the necessity of saving the satellite, though it’s pretty clear
something else is at work here.

Gerson wants Frank to bring NASA scientists up to speed on the
old system. Frank offers Gerson an ultimatum: Reassemble Daedalus
and send them all into space, and he’ll fix the problem himself.
Gerson sputters protests about sending geriatrics into space, but
Frank argues that if they can send a 77-year-old John Glenn back
up, they can send Daedalus too.

So much for plot. The real pleasures of Space Cowboys
don’t have to do with what happens, but with how. These four
stars are completely at home in front of the camera, and we feel
at home with them. The actors have an easygoing camaraderie with
one another that brings their old Air Force history convincingly
to life. The film does its best to make the rest of the film
convincing as well; thanks in part to active cooperation from
NASA, the training and space sequences are far more realistic, if
not a whole lot more plausible, than the ludicrous comic-book
exploits of Armageddon. The second act, with the wrinkly
Daedalus crew struggling to qualify for space duty, provides
genuine laughs, and the third act in space is always interesting
and sometimes thrilling.

Some of those laughs in the second act come from Jerry, a
flamboyantly libidinous old man who takes an active interest in
anything female. While his crass behavior may offend some, it
doesn’t actually go anywhere and is played for absurdity rather
than laciviousness. A romance between a mission director named
Sara (Marcia Gay Harden, who’s about 40) and Hawk, who (though
portrayed by 55-year-old Tommy Lee Jones) is supposed to be the
peer of Eastwood (70) and the others, seemed a bit of a stretch,
but I guess if Hawk is a supposed to be a space-program icon, it
isn’t out of the question. After all, in real life Eastwood
himself is married to a woman half his age (his screen wife in
Cowboys is considerably older).

Why does Tank, who’s supposed to be an American Baptist
minister with Southern roots, at one point in space utter a
snatch of the Hail Mary? Because Hollywood doesn’t know any
better. All religion in Movie-Land, whether good, bad, or
indifferent, tends to be Catholic. (For the record, Tank’s is
basically indifferent. Although a clergyman, he’s basically a
regular Joe who to his credit manages to avoid the dangers at
both extremes of the Hollywood religious spectrum
[hyper-piousness at one end, hypocrisy at the other], only to
succumb to the mushy middle; he’s the least developed and
utilized character, and his religion is virtually
irrelevant.)

This is a fun movie. Those with memories of the early years of
the space program will especially enjoy its sense of nostalgia;
and the suggestion that it’s never too late to realize an old
dream should resonate with almost anyone. Well, maybe not people
who really loved Armageddon.
They’re bound to find Space Cowboys boring and
understimulating. Those who found Armageddon loud,
fragmented, and obvious may breathe a sigh of relief now that the
real space cowboys have come to town.